Just went to refill my doryx. Had to use my new insurance card. Same copay as before but a different drug plan that for some reason won't cover doryx under the copay - so was told the refill would be $200. Insurance Co office is closed for the holiday, so I can't get any clarification and I'm on my last dose of doryx.....really bad planning on my part - DUH!

Short ans. : Same dose;however,if you've never done Doryx(Brand Doxy),then go with it instead of the generic, even though it IS comparatively expensive. The rationale for this is on one or both of the following sites:

http://wwww.roadback.org
and http://www.rheumatic.org

also,the rationale maybe on http//www.arthritistrust.org

dq

[This message has been edited by DiffyQue (edited 01 January 2005).]

One argument by some rheumatologists about some, if not all members of the tetracycline class of antibiotics, has to with the contents of the capsule:

Pelleted-form vs. non-pelleted form(which usu. means a loose powder; there may be a powder-form that was compressed into a tablet). Here the term pellet to tiny balls
comprising the contents of, in this case Doryx.

The content of my Doryx capsules were pellets, as compared to a generic Doxy I once had which was in powder form. While I got better results with the pelleted form in the caps, I twice did an orange-colored tablet-form of doxy which worked equally well as the latter, pelleted form in the caps.
I don't know if the orangish-colored form was brand- or generic. If they were generic they made me feel like I got hit in the head with a baseball bat(herx), and not the increased pressure in the head, a side-effect which is, I think, called intra-cranial hypertension. When this occurred, I just spaced my intake by day(s)--a trial and error thing. The generic doxy gave me neither a herx, nor increased press. in the head.

One M.D. gave some reason for his preference of the pelleted form, a reason which I don't recall.

One other reason I can think of for why Doryx
may work better than generic is the idea of
'Racemates,' and symmetry in nature.

When a special kind of light is shone on a given chemical that 'just came out of the hopper', some of it will rotate this light to the right, and some of it will rotate this light to the left; even though every molecule of this chemical is composed of the same number of atoms.

With many, if not most chemicals,including medicines, only the molecules that rotate this special kind of light in a given direction, will be effective for a given medical condition; those molecules in a batch that rotate the light in the direction opposite that for which whose purpose it is inteded, will be less effective, but work nonetheless. The atoms of the less effective racemate don't couple as well with the receptors on a given bug.

Still another possible scenario(outcome) with certain medicines, is that a given racemate for which a given condition is not indicated could cause some devastating consequences,thalidomide being a classic example. Conversely, the racemate of a given batch of a chemical or medicine may have benefits/purposes as good as it may be disasterous for those purposes for which it was initially used.

So, Brand Doxy is probably a doxy that had its racemates separated, a step in preparation that results in increased cost, and if polarized light were shone through it, the Doryx might rotate the light in a leftward or rightward direction. I really don't know whether, or not, this is the case with doxycycline, but it could be.
If it is then the Brand form would be more effective than the generic form; the other racemate in the generic would just take a little longer to be effective.

If this is not the case, then there may be a difference in absorption and/or processing of the medicine by the person when it comes to the pelleted vs powdered form.

dq

[This message has been edited by DiffyQue (edited 01 January 2005).]

[This message has been edited by DiffyQue (edited 01 January 2005).]

I've been on both generic Doxy (Watson) and Doryx (Warner-Chilcott).

I was on 300-400 mg/d of generic and 200 mg/d of Doryx. The 200 mg of Doryx did WAY more for me that the 400 mg of generic.